Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

Leadership Done Right Blog

What Is Your Leadership Purpose?

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There must be purpose in our lives.  We are here to accomplish something, to bless society with our talents and our learning.  There can be fun, yes.  But there must be recognition of the fact that life is serious, that the risks are great, but that we can overcome them if we will discipline ourselves.

-Gordon B. Hinckley

Several years ago when I first became a leader, I didn’t understand the importance of my role.  I initially felt like I was more important and “better” than everyone else.  I kind of let my leadership position go to my head.  It didn’t take long, however, for me to realize that as the leader I had a great responsibility.  This responsibility humbled me very quickly.  I realized that there was now a lot riding on me and I could feel the weight of the pressure.

After I realized that I had a lot of responsibility, I felt like I had to get to work.  I had to figure out what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.  There were specific goals, objectives, and purposes that we had within our organization.  In addition to the organizational purposes, I had to define my purpose as the leader.  What was I going to do to help my group be successful?  What was I going to do to leave my mark? [Read more…] about What Is Your Leadership Purpose?

Is Innovation Really Happening?

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Innovation – def. Something new or different introduced. The act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.  ~www.dictionary.com

Innovation

In business, innovation is really important.  Because it is so important, the word innovation is used all the time.  Electronic companies are innovating new ways to create the electronic devices. Automobile companies are innovating new ways to make a comfortable yet fuel efficient vehicle.  Companies in all sorts of industries are being innovative in their specific processes.  With all that innovation, it is easy to hear people say, “Innovate this…  Innovate that…”

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday called You Call That Innovation? by Leslie Kwoh.  She talked about how all companies are in the habit of saying “innovation” to the point where innovation is beginning to have no meaning.  In the article, she stated that the word innovation was used “33,528 times in quarterly and annual reports last year.”  She also said that, “255 books [were] published in the last 90 days with ‘innovation’ in the title.”  So is the word innovation being overused? [Read more…] about Is Innovation Really Happening?

Management Or Leadership? Both!

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This is a guest post by D. Scott Smith. He is the CEO of Earth Fortification Supplies Company and a board member for Pajaggle, Inc.  He also held the position of COO for Gibson Holders and logistics operation manager at Hewlett-Packard.  He holds a bachelor of science in finance from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University Of Phoenix.
Twitter: @d_scott
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dscottsmith
Blog: d-scott-smith.com

Are you a better Leader or Manager? Is one better than the other? You’ve heard, “manage processes, lead people” seems simple; yet defining a Manager is relatively simple, while defining a Leader is like putting words to emotion. If Management is prose, Leadership is Poetry. Much thought has been poured into the definitions; pounds of books have been written to define and develop Leaders. We need practical applications of the concepts to make our businesses and organizations better. Gleaning from the works of others we can compile practical and workable definitions.

The goal is to run solid organizations; Management and Leadership are tools to help us fulfill that goal. It is a natural conclusion that we need to understand the tools and how we (personally) use them. You might have strengths in one over the other; in that case you can develop your own ability to wield the tool, or if you have the resources – hire the skill. Conducting a personal evaluation requires the specific skills of Managers and Leaders be defined. The definitions provide a framework for us to gauge our relative abilities and determine where to find opportunities for improvement. [Read more…] about Management Or Leadership? Both!

Why Don’t People Change?

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Isaac Newton was able to come up with some incredible advancements in the world of mathematics and science during his day.  Some of those advancements were:

  • Newton’s Three Laws of Motion
  • The development of the infinitesimal calculus
  • The discovery of refraction of light
  • Newton’s Laws of Universal Gravitation

Do you think Newton came up with all these discoveries on his own?  Did he have any information or knowledge to start from?  Newton was quoted as saying,

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

Standing on the Shoulders Of Giants

As a leader in math and science, Newton understood the importance of learning from others.  He took the knowledge he received from others and improved on it to make things better.  He constantly studied the practices of previous scientists and mathematicians so he could come up with new discoveries. [Read more…] about Why Don’t People Change?

Should Leaders Be Paid Based On Performance?

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During the last few months, there have been a number of articles in the news about leaders and their compensation. In March, I did a post about an article that showed statistics stating that CEO compensation increase for new CEOs had only increased by 1.5% in 2011 compared to 11% in 2010. This was significantly down from past years even though their performance had improved and the performance of the company had improved.

I did a post about Carmelo Anthony because he was paid a high salary to help the New York Knicks become a top team and win a championship. The organization has not been as successful as expected since he joined the team and they have paid him a very high salary for results.

Once again there was an article in the news about compensation and performance. The Wall Street Journal article CEOs That Delivered The Most And Least Bang For The Buck by Joann S. Lublin and Dana Mattioli stated, “A Wall Street Journal analysis of compensation data for 300 top U.S. companies assembled by Hay Group found that while pay generally tracked performance last year, some CEOs delivered far more bang for the buck when it came to shareholder returns.”

The article went on to explain that although the results discussed in the March article showed that in many cases the compensation during the last year was equilivalent to performance, there were also companies that didn’t follow suit with compensation based on performance. The article explained the stories of four CEOs that were significantly underpaid or overpaid.  The graphic above shows some of the statistics related to the performance and compensation based on the CEO.

[Read more…] about Should Leaders Be Paid Based On Performance?

Have Courage To Be The Leader

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You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you cannot do.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

It seems like most, if not all, people have something that they really fear.  Fears can be very real at times.  They can cause people to freeze up and tremble.  Other times, fear and keep people from moving forward on their goals.  As a leader, it can be easy to let fear get a hold of you.  There are many things that you may fear as a leader.  Some of those fears may include:

1.  Fear of rejection
2.  Fear of inadequacy
3.  Fear of the unknown
4.  Fear of underperformance
5.  Fear of lack of control [Read more…] about Have Courage To Be The Leader

Overcoming The Leadership Blogging Challenges

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Recently, I received a comment on one of my blog posts asking for some insight on how I started out as a blogger. The question went as follows:

Brandon, I liked the article. However, I’d like to know how you overcame the blogging challenges to be a consistent blogger. Hearing your personal experience relative to the topic is like a breath of fresh air and sets your blogs apart from the rest. What problems did you face when starting out this webpage/blog? Did you have to do a little self “reprogramming” to be consistent? Were there any tools you used that helped? Thanks.

He brought up some very important questions that each blogger must ask him/herself when they start out blogging. If you want to be an avid blogger and gain a following, you must know how to answer the questions he asked. When you first start out blogging, there are many challenges you will encounter. If you want to be a blogger, you must set your goals before you even start so you know the direction you plan to go.

How do you overcome blogging challenges to become a consistent blogger?

I have been blogging for the past two years off and on. I started out blogging when I was in the MBA program at the University of Nevada – Reno. At that time, I had to blog for a class I took from Bret L. Simmons. The blogs we wrote were responses to case studies and articles we read.

I posted blog posts as often as we were required to in the class. By the end of the class I had gotten a few followers for my blog. I then felt obligated to continue blogging. I wasn’t very consistent at that time though. I would blog for a few weeks and then miss a few or sometimes even a month.  I was very sporatic.  [Read more…] about Overcoming The Leadership Blogging Challenges

Dishonesty: The Fall Of A Leader

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A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the CEO of Yahoo, Scott Thompson.  He was in the news because he had only been with Yahoo for a short time and already was making major layoffs.  Well, once again he has gotten himself into the spotlight.  This time it is for his dishonesty.

Mistakes

Over the last few months since Scott Thompson took over as CEO, Yahoo has continued to struggle.  In a recent regulatory filing, it was encountered that Scott’s resume erroneously said he had earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science when in fact he only had a degree in accounting.  [Read more…] about Dishonesty: The Fall Of A Leader

How To Lose The Trust Of Those You Lead

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Honesty gives you strength.  When you are honest you have complete knowledge that everything you said was the truth.  You can have a clear mind and feel confident that nothing you said or did will come back to haunt you.

When you are honest in every way, you are able to enjoy peace of mind and maintain self-respect.  You build strength of character, which allows you to be of service to others.  You are trustworthy in the eyes of those around you. ~Unknown Author

On the other hand, if you are dishonest in your words or actions, you will hurt yourself or those around you.  You will lose the trust of your closest associates, and that trust will be hard if not impossible to regain.

Some forms of dishonesty include lying, cheating, and stealing.  Three major consequences that come as a result of dishonesty are:

1.  Loss of Self-worth

When you are dishonest, you will feel a loss in your sense of self-worth.  When you are dishonest, you are telling yourself and the world that you are not good enough to do things the honest way.  With each choice you make, you know what is honest and what is not.  When you make dishonest choices, you are hurting yourself as well as others.  Because you know yourself, you know the truth about everything you say and do.  With each time you say something that is not true, you begin to lose your feelings of self-worth. [Read more…] about How To Lose The Trust Of Those You Lead

How To Make It Through The Hard Times By Having A Vision

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Hitachi, the Japanese electronics giant, has been around for 102 years.  Recently they went through one of their worst periods in company history.  During the four year period from 2006 to 2010, Hitachi went through a company depression where the total losses equaled $12.4 billion.  The losses were the worst in company history.  The following two years they posted record profits.  In 2011 alone, they posted a net profit of $4.35 billion.

So why did they go from having record losses to record profits? What happened to make them profitable?  In April 2010, Hiroaki Nakanishi took over as the president of Hitachi.  When he took over, he had been in the company for many years which gave him a lot of experience, but he didn’t adopt the previous leadership culture that led to the problems.  With all his experience, he hadn’t allowed himself to grow into the same mold as all the past executives.  He had a completely different thought process than all the previous leaders.  The article Hitachi President Prods Turnaround in the Wall Street Journal by Daisuke Wakabayashi states:

Hitachi under Mr. Nakanishi has broken away from a plodding, risk-averse style of management, spinning off at breakneck pace its consumer-related operations in mobile phones, computer parts and flat-panel TVs to concentrate on selling big-ticket—and more profitable—power plants, rail lines and water treatment facilities.

While other Japanese electronics firms continue to suffer from losses in consumer products and the punishing impact of the strong yen, Hitachi—Japan’s largest electronics manufacturer—has posted a second year of record profits

[Read more…] about How To Make It Through The Hard Times By Having A Vision